Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale among 100 most challenged books in U.S. in the past decade

1. The Completely Accurate Diary of a Component-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
2. Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey
3. Thirteen Factors Why by Jay Asher
4. Wanting for Alaska by John Inexperienced
5. George by Alex Gino
6. And Tango Can make Three by Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell, illustrated by Henry Cole
7. Drama by Raina Telgemeier
8. Fifty Shades of Gray by E. L. James
9. Online Girls series by Lauren Myracle
10. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The checklist overall is a mixture of outdated standards, this sort of as Harper Lee’s To Get rid of a Mockingbird and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and far more new operates, this sort of as Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Getting a Wallflower and Suzanne Collins’ multimillion-advertising The Starvation Game titles.

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian common The Handmaid’s Tale was a person of three Canadian titles on the checklist, coming in at #29.

“If you might be a writer and everyone likes you, a) You happen to be carrying out a thing completely wrong, or b) You do not exist,” the Canadian author wrote,” Atwood wrote in an electronic mail to the Connected Press in 2019.

The Handmaid’s Tale was in the major 10 most challenged guides in the U.S. in 2019.

The Handmaid’s Tale was at first printed in 1985. The modern common tells the tale of a handmaid recognized as Offred who is trapped in a society in which her only goal is to conceive and bear the baby of a impressive gentleman.

Its stunning cultural and political resonance in 2017 has brought it again to bestseller lists. A television adaptation of the novel starring Elisabeth Moss has garnered awareness and essential acclaim as very well.

Two other Canadian titles cracked the major 100 alongside The Handmaid’s Tale.

The 2015 comedian book Intercourse is a Humorous Word by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth was the major Canadian title on the checklist, landing in the #twenty place, 9 places forward of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Intercourse is a Humorous Word is a comedian for young ones ages eight-10 about bodies, gender and sexuality.

The graphic novel This One Summertime by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki is the remaining Canadian title on the checklist, taking the  #forty three place.

This One Summertime is about two youthful girls coming of age all through a person summer at their families’ cottages. It was printed in 2016.

Objections raised by parents and other neighborhood associates have ranged from specific language and depictions of drug use in Alexie’s novel to Asher’s topic of suicide.

“A whole lot of the guides on the checklist also replicate a escalating pattern in new many years to obstacle guides by men and women of color and guides from the LGBTQ neighborhood,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the library association’s Business for Intellectual Freedom.

Illustrations include things like Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, about a Black girl raped by her father Alex Gino’s George, about a transgender baby and Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s photo ebook about two gay penguins, And Tango Can make Three.

The checklist was introduced on Monday, Sept. 28, 2020, as the library affiliation marks its yearly Banned Guides Week.

The ALA defines a “obstacle” as a “official, written grievance filed with a library or college requesting that products be taken out since of content or appropriateness.”

The checklist is based on information reviews and on accounts submitted from libraries and other individuals in the local neighborhood, despite the fact that the ALA believes several problems go unreported.

The affiliation does not formally depend the number of periods guides are really taken out from a library shelf or from a college examining checklist.

You can see the complete checklist of 100 guides on the American Library Association’s internet site.

With files from CBC Guides.